Teacher

So at the kids' school they do these occasional after school classes/courses called Creative Knights, where kids get to do, I don't know, projects, science stuff, languages, learning about cars ....whatever volunteers are able to teach. So because last year I had done these Paper plate turkeys with the kids around Thanksgiving, Emily signed me up to lead a Thanksgiving crafts class. And that was today.

The plan was to do two projects, maybe three. We would do the paper plate turkeys, and then we would do these apple, marshmallow and raisin turkeys, and maybe some sort of tepee thing.  I had gone to the store and got the apples and everything, so it was all set. Thing I came to find was that doing projects with a couple of kids takes much less time than doing them with 23. We had all the stuff, and I had a couple of parents and nieces helping, but I was still running around stapling and folding and cutting and gluing googly eyes, because you have to have googly eyes, for all 23 kids.

I pretty much didn't stop to catch my breath for an hour and 20 minutes. There would be Kate saying "daddy! Daddy?" then an aside to her friend Brooke, "that's my daddy" before calling me again to help her out. There would be Jack asking for help before sharing a joke with one of his friends. Then another child needed a beak cut, and another a waddle. Or carbuncle? I have no idea. Whatever that red thing on a turkey's face is. And the glue sticks. Ah, the glue sticks. There were many. And lots of staples were used. I hope there are no barefoot kids there on Monday.

As I finished each turkey, all 23 a little different, I said, Hey, nice one! And it wasn't difficult to do, because they were all unique and all awesome. And then it was time to go and everyone said goodbye and a lot said Thank you and Kate named her turkey Siena or something and it was beautiful and they were happy.

In college or maybe after people sometimes said I should be a teacher. It was one of those things I briefly thought about but always figured I would do journalism and publishing of some sort, before one day drifting into a career that didn't even exist at the time and sounds fake even now. I don't know. I have a ton of respect for teachers anyway and probably even more after spending an hour in a room with 20 some odd kids. Because doing it every day, it would be pretty challenging. But doing it a little bit, here and there, every so often. That I could do.

And oh yeah we ran out of time for the apple turkeys. So when we got home, I got out all the stuff and Kate and Jack made them anyway.

Blackout!

Day 1

We lost power Monday evening. It was expected, and we had the flashlights and lanterns ready. We ate dinner by candlelight - leftover lasagna for us, yogurt and bread and peapods for Jack and Kate.

In the living room, unable to find the book I wanted to read to the kids by candlelight/lantern, I settled on Grimm's Fairy Tales. Kind of dark stuff, and might I note that the authors of these things must not have liked their wives very much. Most of the stories involved wives making their husbands do things they didn't want to do. ("Grimm! When you are going to finish those stories you keep promising to write? Grimm!")

After that, we made hand shadows on the wall. Somewhere along the line I must have inadvertently said "hand puppets," because that was what Jack went on to call them for the next day. So the next morning when he said, "Kate and I made some great hand puppets!" I went into his room looking for them, and there was nothing there. I made a dog, a moose, a bird, a snake, the old standards. Jack seemed ambitious, contorting his hands into wild shapes, looking at what was produced, then trying again. Kate made a bunny, remembering how she'd seen me make it. One of us guessed it, and she pointed happily and yelled "YES!" Then she made another one. Which was also a bunny. One of us guessed it. "YES!"

Jack made a dog, then when we guessed that he did one more. He rolled his arms really fast. Uh, a cotton gin? A lottery wheel? We couldn't guess it. "HURRICANE SANDY!" he yelled.

We laughed for a while, then went to bed. We'd moved Kate's bed into Jack's room (high winds, and there were more trees near her windows), so she slept in there. They slept quickly.

Day 2

We used the camping coffee pot to make bad coffee in our powerless home. (The gas burners on top of the stove worked.) We walked to Cathy's and spent some time over there (they still had power). Surveyed the damage from overnight, which included a pretty tree in our backyard having been snapped off; it rested against our fence and the neighbor's deck. Had to have it removed, which was kind of sad.

Played some games, left the kids there, went home to get some stuff done around the house while it was still light, and hoped power would come back on. It didn't. Had dinner over at Cathy's, and when the kids asked if they could sleep over -- their first ever -- we said sure. So they did. We went home, sat in the dark for a bit, went to bed early. Uh, it was kind of cold.

Day 3

Still no power. It was Halloween. Emily went back to work, and the kids and I walked up and down the street, taking a few pictures of trees and lines down. For Jack and Kate it was all a big adventure, really; there was no school, they could play all day with their cousins, we went to McDonald's for lunch...not so bad.

After lunch we went home, I got them dressed up in their costumes, and we went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Regular nighttime trick or treating was essentially cancelled on our street -- nobody had any power, there were no street lights, it would be really dark. So we went during the day. They happily ran to the houses next door, across the street, got their candy, and plenty of it (because the people handing it out knew there wouldn't be many other visitors). A friend who had power hosted an indoor trick or treating event, with adults standing in rooms handing out candy at doors. Kids got more candy, showed off their awesome costumes, were happy. They're probably both young enough -- especially Kate -- that they didn't remember how much more extravagant Halloween was a year ago. They left with people having enjoyed seeing them in their costumes and with them having got big buckets of candy. That's Halloween.

Day 4

We got power back. It was a huge relief. Told the kids they had to come home from Aunt Cathy's now. They did a nice job of not seeming overly disappointed.

It was sunny and warm, so we went biking. We brought their bikes down to Recreation Park. (Lyon's Park, the bigger one nearest us, was closed because of all the trees and wires down....too dangerous.) Rec Park also had trees down, several huge ones. It was crazy; like an angry giant had walked around the neighborhood pushing down everything in his way.

What was funny was that to Jack and Kate, the mammoth fallen trees were just another part of the park scenery. This huge tree had crushed the fence around the tennis courts and now lay across the courts themselves, and they just happily rode their bikes in circles, playing games, pretending to see monsters, pretending to go home. I sat on a bench a little way away, snapped pictures with my phone, and they went around and around and around.